1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to using a transformer to speed-up multimedia communications between a first system and a second system. More particularly, the invention concerns dynamically monitoring a transfer of multimedia information and modifying subsequent media transfers or system transfer parameters to overcome system and bandwidth constraints affecting the speed of a transfer.
2. Description of the Related Art
Multimedia information--information that may take on numerous forms which can be enhanced or diminished depending upon the importance of the particular information being conveyed--can be transmitted in a variety of applications over a network. For example, in a video environment there may be foreground and background information provided to a screen. The screen will typically be a video screen, such as a television set, or a computer monitor. The most common example of this type of system is an interactive video system such as seen on cable television networks (i.e., QVC or Home Shopping Network). These types of systems allow for a viewer to look at the screen and pick the type of product that he or she may want based on reviewing the information on the screen and then calling a particular telephone number to purchase the product.
Multimedia information may also include audio information in which, for example, the news or weather is transmitted using background sounds such as white noise, background music or other information. Multimedia information can also be a combination of graphics, video and music in an entertainment form, or as mentioned above, in an interactive system. Interactive systems are presently available that allow an individual access to video, audio and graphic information on a network.
However, presently known systems have the problem of requiring a large amount of bandwidth to allow for the high quality speedy transmission of the multimedia information. For example, in the case of video information, as much as 30 MB/sec bandwidth is required to send a quality video signal along a transmission path, and audio transmissions may require as much as 10 MB/sec bandwidth to allow high quality audio signals to be reproduced accurately. In many cases, usually involving non-commercial computers and systems, it is impossible to attain these transmission requirements to assure speedy transfers of high quality multimedia information.
Bandwidth--a measure of the information carrying capacity of a transmission channel--is limited by the type of media used to make the transmission. What is meant by limited bandwidth can be viewed in two different ways. First, limited bandwidth can be the total available bandwidth at any "instance in time." Another way of measuring limited bandwidth is by determining the bandwidth available over a "specific time period." For example, the overall available bandwidth, such as in telephone networks where the bandwidth is approximately 10 Kilohertz, is measured at any instance during a telephone call. However, the available bandwidth over a specified period of time could be very high because a particular telephone set is not utilized constantly, that is, telephone calls generally only happen occasionally during the day.
However, in looking at a bandwidth network such as cable television, although the size of the bandwidth is significant, most of the available bandwidth is utilized for providing a continuous network signal. In this example, the available bandwidth over a specified period of time might be much less than the above-mentioned telephone system because the broadcast continues during most of the day. But the bandwidth used at any instance in time might be quite lower, such as during the broadcast of a test pattern.
Telephone networks have traditionally been used to transmit data or voice information. There are also telephone sets that can also transmit video information over telephone lines. For example, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) has introduced a video phone which can transmit video images across a telephone network. As technology advances, it is apparent that telephone networks, cable networks, and wireless links will be increasingly used for transferring multimedia information.
Because of the low cost of implementation, a typical telephone network with a limited bandwidth for transmitting multimedia information is currently in wide use. However, particularly when attempting to transmit video information--requiring a significant bandwidth--telephone lines are inadequate for providing quick transmission of a high quality multimedia image.
At the same time, the world wide web (WWW) has exploded with the WWW pages designed with high-bandwidth users in mind, yet a large percentage of web clients use low-speed modems such as a 14.4 or 28.8 modem. To speed up transmissions, users are increasingly considering wireless services to increase multimedia transfer rates due to larger bandwidths. This demand for wider bandwidth connections is due to the lack of available bandwidth from WWW servers to web clients using conventional telephone lines. Alternatively, WWW users that wish to reduce bandwidth requirements are connecting to the WWW with graphics turned off, that is, where the graphics used on a web page are not transmitted or "downloaded". This graphics-less connection eliminates annoying delay or latency problems associated with downloading heavy graphic content web pages. However, because of the heavy commercial advertisement use of the web locations, corporations who are paying for the visibility of their corporate logo or the logo associated with their products are concerned that their "logos" are being edited from the download materials. Also, many pages are less useful, or unusable, with graphics turned off. The solution to "selective" editing is to either increase bandwidths, decrease the amount of information transferred, or change the way the multimedia information is transferred.
Methods for reducing the bandwidth required for downloading the multimedia information have been developed but, as a whole, are inadequate. For example, substituting a text string for the graphic has been attempted. However, most advertisers find that text is no substitute for the visibility obtained by a logo. Minimizing the size of the image downloaded without sacrificing image quality has been suggested, but these techniques typically provide at most a factor of 1.5 to 2 in compression, and offer little savings in the bandwidth used during transmission. Tile advantages gained by this method are negligible when considering the limitations of the internet connections versus consumer modems.
Another method to deal with the low bandwidth of telephone communication lines is for a WWW page to offer multiple versions of the pages that can be downloaded. For example, the page may offer a download where there are no graphics, minimal graphics or full graphics Most web sites, however, do not have the human resources nor disk space to provide multiple page versions. Unfortunately, there currently is no way to optimize a single page for delivery to both high-bandwidth and low-bandwidth clients. Also, this methods does not eliminate the selective editing concerns discussed above.
Lastly, caching and pre-fetching multimedia information has been used to reduce initial server-client latency and server-cache bandwidth requirements. However, this technique does not reduce cache-client bandwidth requirements. As is apparent, each of the methods discussed above are ineffective in reducing the bandwidth required to make a transfer and are merely attempts to reduce the amount of multimedia information being transferred.